The Metaspheres
by Sparky Lurkdragon
Summary: An exploration of the Metaspheres, of how they work and of how Ecco reacted to the various bodies they granted him.
1. Neither Patient nor Impatient

Disclaimer: Ecco and his world belong to Appaloosa Interactive.

Author's notes: These stories take place in the Genesis/Mega Drive games' storyline. They were originally written for the fanfic100 community over at LiveJournal. The idea of said community is to write 100 stories, based on as many prompts, for a fandom. Each chapter of this 'story' was written for a prompt, so this is more of a collection of stories than one unified story, but the different stories are so closely related that I thought it would be best to group them together here at this website.  
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The Metasphere, safe under the Asterite's spinning globes, sensed the arrival of Ecco the Stone, sensed that Ecco had touched it. It obeyed the commands the Asterite had long ago given it and opened a portal to the Stream of Time. It felt none of the disorientation the little Singer did, because it was not really alive and could not really feel anything, only sense things the Asterite had instructed it to sense, only do what the Asterite had ordered it to do. After a little, it sensed that it had left the Stream, and after a little more time sensed that the Stone had left it, and so it began the second part of its ordained duties.

Nothing could see or otherwise sense the little sphere now that Ecco had left it, protected as it was by the Asterite's powers of thought, but even though nothing could see it, it still glowed dimly, as a fish hidden under sand still exists. Cracks appeared on the Metasphere's surface, and from the cracks the glow was stronger. The cracks grew deeper and deeper, invisibly brighter and brighter, until the sphere split into five pieces. The pieces, wedge-shaped at first, drifted away from each other, moving and shifting until they were about the same apparent size and shape as the original sphere had been.

Each piece carried its own orders from the Asterite; in their strange, not alive way, each knew what was required of it, though they did not know why nor even wonder why. The five pieces moved through power only the Asterite of the Living Sea could know, perceiving the world only enough to know when they had arrived at their ordained points to wait with neither patience nor impatience for Ecco the Stone.


	2. Fin to Feather

_One of the spheres simply went up, higher and higher until it found a seagull, as the Asterite had told it to do, and for a little while this gull became the only thing that could sense it. The gull, curious, pecked the dimly glowing sphere and got its beak stuck; it cried in alarm, trying to kick the sphere off, to beat it off with its wings, but it only succeeded in getting more entangled. When the thing holding it seemed to vanish, the gull flapped away wildly, continuing to make alarmed noises. It wondered for a long time what the terrible thing that tried to eat it had been; all that it knew for sure was that the experience had been horrifying, and the seagull avoided the area for months._

_But the Metasphere did not know this._

Ecco was very glad to be in the ocean again, after leaping from one floating island to the next with the help of the Skyway and the Singers of Trellia's time. He happily sang his Song of Sight, glad that he could use it properly again, and it saw a Glyph resting on the ocean floor. Wondering what it might say, Ecco dove and sang at it. The Glyph's message echoed back: "The Metasphere was created by the Asterite to change you into another lifeform." Along with the message, the Glyph gave Ecco the picture of a strange sphere, brownish and lightly glowing – it reminded Ecco of one of the Asterite's globes. Ecco mentally thanked the Glyph, knowing it would not understand a spoken thanks – indeed would only repeat its message – and swam on, to the east and up to breathe. After surfacing, he tried to continue east, to where the Asterite was, but found he could not. There was an immense mountain rising into an island in his path; Ecco picked a direction and began swimming along the island, but even after half an hour his Song of Sight could not see the island's end, and Ecco decided to take a rest to feed.

During his feeding, Ecco saw something strange in the Dry Side as he surfaced. He lifted his head into the Dry Side and looked at the strange object with his left eye. The object was brown, glowing dimly, and shaped like a sphere. _Like the Glyph showed me. That must be a Metasphere,_ Ecco thought. _But... why do I need it? The Glyph said it would change me into another lifeform... so why do I need to become something else?_ Ecco turned his head to look at the Metasphere with his right eye. _Right now, I need to get around that island. Perhaps the Metasphere will help me; let us see what lifeform it changes me into._

Ecco dove, then turned and surfaced at full speed, touched the Metasphere –

– and was no longer a Singer. Although he expected the change, he was disoriented; his new body's instincts only managed to keep him in the air long enough to reach the island in his way and crash into it. He rolled a little and managed to get into the position he was typically in as a Singer, belly parallel to the ground. It did not feel very comfortable in his new body.

Ecco snapped his jaws in annoyance, and was startled by the sound he made. He experimentally snapped again, and, with his mind focused on his snout for the moment, he realized that it was bright yellow. Focusing forward led to finding that his range of vision was much more constrained than he was used to, and this gave Ecco the uncomfortable feeling of his head being stuck between two rocks. He moved his head to one side, automatically moving what he was used to being his pectoral fins to try to steer; moving his 'fins' had little effect, but Ecco was able to turn his head so far to his left that he could focus fairly clearly on his backside. He blinked, seeing light grey feathers along his back, his left pectoral fin replaced by a wing, his tail divided into feathers rather than flukes, and... a foot. He turned his head far to the right and saw a mirror image of the same.

As a Singer of the shoreline, Ecco had, of course, seen seagulls before. Seeing the feathers and webbed feet brought him to the realization that, thanks to the Metasphere, he now was one. Now, he just had to get used to his transformation and make it over the island.

_The birds of the Dry Side must use their hind-limbs to walk, like the Pinching Ones use six of their limbs on the sea floor. Using this form's hind-limbs is the next part of getting used to it. _ At first, Ecco tried to simply reorient himself to point up as he would have in his normal body; this only led to resting his weight on his lower torso and flapping his wings uselessly. Ecco returned to resting on his front, thinking about and becoming consciously aware of this new body – of his strange new limbs, of his wings with their elbows, and of his neck; of his small size, his lack of flukes, and his brightly-colored beak. And he tried again.

The second try was closer, but still not good enough to stand; the third time, something, perhaps the instincts of seagullkind, made something click in his brain, and Ecco stood up. He looked around, moving his neck in all sorts of novel ways; he chanced to look up, and saw a larger bird circling the peak of the mountain. The large bird made him afraid, though he did not immediately know why. 'Listening' to the gull's instincts, he thought to himself, _So it seems the seagulls have their own Hungry Ones to fear. I will have to get past the Soaring Hungry One, and I don't think a gull will be able to fight it. I'll have to be swift._ Ecco spread his wings, and, again 'listening' to seagullkind's instincts, managed to take off.

At first, Ecco kept fairly low, getting used to flying before trying to get past the Soaring Hungry One. It felt strange to travel through the Dry Side as he could travel through the sea as a Singer; flapping was different from swimming, and constantly falling slightly when he didn't flap was a little disorienting, but aside from that the very idea of going up and down and side to side at will through the Dry Side was strange and fascinating. At one point, he was suddenly pushed up by a current in the air; Ecco tried to make a startled noise that would have turned into a happy one, but only succeeded in soundlessly blowing air out of two nostrils near where his beak met his head. He flapped forward, out of the current, thinking, _Of course. The gulls do not sing, so I cannot sing while I'm a gull. Still... being unable to sing aside, I like this. Is this something like the way the flying dolphins feel when they swim through the Sea of the Sky?_

Ecco played with flying for some time before again looking at the Soaring Hungry One. He decided that it was time to get past it and the island, and so he approached the island and rose, flying as fast as he could. The Soaring Hungry One spotted him as he passed over the top of the mountain and dove at him; he heard it coming and dove, the instincts of seagullkind helping him by folding his wings back. He hit the water –

– and he was a Singer again. The Soaring Hungry One broke out of its dive after its claws skimmed the surface of the water, and Ecco watched as it circled for a little before flying back to its home. Ecco sang at it as it left. "I won't be your food today, hunter of the Dry Side. I wish you good hunting for your real prey, though." Ecco turned and continued to the east, seeking his old friend.


	3. Vents of Medusa

_One sphere passed through the Sea of Darkness, passing through the lightless cave unharmed, following its orders until it came to a mass of medusae. For a moment, it became known to one of the medusae, enveloping the clear animal as if eating it. The medusa instinctively tried to get away, and in a few moments it did, losing perception of the Metasphere. The medusa, having no brain and no memory beyond the instincts of its kind, immediately forgot the experience and continued on its way._

_But the Metasphere did not know this._

Ecco was glad to be out of the Sea of Darkness, where he could only see through his Song of Sight, but he was still nervous. The Dry Side was a long way up, and his song could see no air bubbles nearby. Worse yet, the way up was clogged with stinging medusae – it would take a long time to rise through them. But, there was something else his Song of Sight was seeing; something even less there than a medusa, something round. Ecco went to investigate, as it was on the way up anyhow; once he could see it with his eyes, Ecco recognised it as a Metasphere.

"How did you get here?" he wondered out loud. "Well... however you did, perhaps you can help me reach the surface before I suffocate. I don't see how becoming a seagull would help me reach the Dry Side quicker, but perhaps you will make me something else this time." Ecco touched it –

– _Rise._

_Up._

_Others. Avoid them. Not food._

_Up._

_Vibration._

_More vibration._

_Painful vibration – faster!_

_Weaker vibration. Normal speed._

_Up._

_Avoid the others._

_Vibration._

_More vibration._

_Painful vibration – faster!_

_Weaker vibration. Normal speed._

_Up._

_Rocks. Go still, sink. Rise to the side. Rise up._

_Up._

_Surface –_

– and Ecco was a Singer again, head above the surface, medusae around him. He was disoriented, and for a few moments simply floated there, trying to figure out what had just happened. He had touched the Metasphere, and then... and then he had lost himself. He could remember the change, and he could remember rising to the surface, but very vaguely, and with no sight nor sound to go with his memories.

Then a medusa stung his right fluke, and Ecco squeaked and swam away from it, turning back once he was away from it and its fellows. The medusae were rising to the surface and gathering together, the current carrying a few of them away from the general mass at a time. Ecco watched the medusa swarm, part of his mind contemplating them, part of it wandering back to his transformation. At some point the two currents of thought mixed together, and Ecco made a surprised noise.

"I was one of them? One of the stinging medusae?" Ecco watched the medusae go about their nearly mindless business for a little while longer. "...I hope that I never have to become one again." With this general proclamation to the sea around him, Ecco turned and swam on.


	4. The Hungry Ones

_One sphere drifted until it came upon a school of the Hungry Ones. First, the sphere touched a nearby Glyph, changing the Glyph's message the way the Asterite would someday learn to do, and then one of the Hungry Ones became aware of the sphere. The Hungry One tried to eat the sphere – its jaws got stuck, and it struggled, but after a few moments the sphere seemed to disappear, and the Hungry One's jaws snapped shut. It swam away, and somewhere in its mind a memory was made of the incident, a memory the Hungry One never used because nothing like encountering a Metasphere ever happened to it again._

_But the Metasphere did not know this._

"Sometimes to escape your enemy, you must become your enemy."

_That is what the Glyph said_, Ecco recalled as he looked at the Metasphere in front of him. _I still do not know what it meant... but I hope I do not have to become a stinging medusa again. The Metaspheres have all been very helpful, though, so I had better see what happens._ With that, Ecco touched the Metasphere –

– and he changed. He was happy that he had kept his intelligence, as he had when he had become a seagull, but he was not sure what he had become, because his new form was fairly similar to that of a Singer. He floated there, puzzled, for a little before feeling the need to surface. As he swam towards the Dry Side, the instincts of his new body partially took over – Ecco felt that he was breathing, and the need to surface went away, but he had not consciously thought about breathing. He stopped again, even more confused.

_What strange form is this?_ he tried to say, but he could not sing. _So, I'm definitely not a Singer anymore... but what am I?_

Again the need to surface started to plague him, and again it went away as he swam, his body breathing without him having to think about it. Ecco continued swimming, focusing on not breathing, but he found it much harder to do in his new body than he did as a Singer; whatever he was, its instinct to breathe water was quite strong, and he could not hold his breath for very long before his body breathed anyway. Ecco started trying to chase his tail, to look at himself; what he saw surprised and alarmed him. His tail was on sideways and colored strangely.

The Glyph's message appeared in his mind. Ecco looked around, and saw the school of Hungry Ones that his song had picked up earlier.

_So_ that's _it_, he thought.

Now that the riddle of breathing was solved, Ecco became aware of a sense that he had never experienced before. It was like the Song of Sight, except different. He could 'see' for quite some distance with it, but it was neither sight nor hearing pretending to be sight. If anything, it was closest to taste, and so that is how Ecco labeled the strange new sensation – in his mind, it was 'far-taste'. With it, Ecco's Hungry One body could sense its fellows as easily as Ecco's song had, as well as one of Ecco's fellow Singers down below; it could not, however, sense the rocks before him half so easily.

Curious, Ecco swam to where he could 'far-taste' a fish that had buried itself in the sand, and became aware of another strange Hungry One sense. Somehow, he could feel the fish below the sand through his snout, though he was not touching it. It wasn't quite _feeling_, exactly, but again the sense was so alien that Ecco could not put another word to it, and so, like 'far-tasting', he labeled the new sense 'far-feeling'. He circled the fish for a little before deciding to let it go; he wasn't all that hungry, and eating as one of the Hungry Ones would have felt strange, besides.

As he swam past the oblivious school of Hungry Ones, Ecco began thinking about the fearsome Singer-eaters. _We Singers look beyond our eyes with our songs; the Hungry Ones look beyond_ their _eyes with far-taste and far-feeling. I wonder what strange things they could tell us, if they could sing?_


	5. Inside

_One sphere travelled straight into the half-built Vortex hive, unnoticed except by one drone. The drone tried to pick up the sphere and take it to the Vortex Queen, but it could not move the sphere, and the drone's strange behavior, coupled with the fact that none of the other drones could sense what it could, convinced the Queen to send some of her drones to kill and eat the 'hallucinating' one._

_But the Metasphere did not know this._

Above the Vortex hive, the battle between the Singers and the Vortex boiled; inside the hive, a lone Singer was fighting ever closer to its heart, where the Vortex Queen dwelled. The strange material of the hive made it difficult for him to look beyond his eyes, and so every new corner was dangerous, but the lone Singer was confident he could pass through it to the Queen, for he was Ecco and had survived a journey through the hive the Vortex had abandoned on their home planet. He had made it into their food preparation machine, which operated with a myriad of shifting currents, designed to disorient prey and drive them to their deaths, but Ecco was intelligent and once again empowered by the Asterite, able to swim with or against the currents as he needed to, able to fight off any Vortex drones that tried to herd him.

But now Ecco had reached an impasse. Ahead of him, covering the only route he could take, there was a wall. He had tried singing at it, both normally and with the Battle Song the Asterite had granted him, and he had tried ramming it, but nothing had worked. He swam away, trying to find a different path; when he eventually ended up back at the wall, he saw a pair of drones floating in front of it. Before Ecco could sneak up on them, one of the drones placed a forepaw on the wall, and to Ecco's surprise, a section of the wall began to open, one half going up, the other going down.

Ecco tried to dash through the opening, but one of the drones noticed the movement and rushed at him, knocking him off-balance and forcing him to fight it; with his Asterite-enhanced Battle Song, the fight was quick, but already the wall was closing again, and the second drone came at him. By the time Ecco had defeated it as well, the opening was too small for Ecco to swim through. He snapped his jaws in frustration, then looked at the area with his Song of Sight, trying to find something that could help him. He did; nearby, somehow inside the hive, was a Metasphere.

"Ah," he sang to himself, "I think that this one will help me get past this strange wall... what better thing to be in this terrible place than one of the Vortex?" Ecco swam to the glowing sphere, touched it –

– and was momentarily dazzled. The world was colored in a very different way than he was used to, given a strange purple tint. Ecco looked around, and after a little began to get his bearings again. The Metasphere had indeed changed him into a Vortex drone, as he had predicted. There were his new, two-fingered paws, tipped in fearsome claws, and behind him was the strange tail; in front of him, Ecco recognised the Vortex machinery, as well as the wall that blocked his way. Awkwardly at first, he swam up to the wall, looking along its sides for the magic place that would open it. After a little, he found a depression shaped much like a Vortex forepaw. Ecco looked at one of his paws, then rested it in the depression as the true drone had a few minutes before; the wall opened, and Ecco swam through.

On the other side, Ecco could hear the whooshing and snorting of the feeding Vortex Queen. He swam on to where there was a narrow entrance to her chambers, but as he came to the threshold, there was a resistance and a flash –

– and Ecco returned to his normal form. He closed his eyes and opened them again, colors back to what he was used to, then backed up and charged at the strange water. He still saw the flash, still felt the resistance, but the strange water was no match for his top speed, his abilities enhanced by the Asterite as they were. Ecco floated at the top of the chamber for a few seconds, looking at the Vortex Queen with his eyes and song, and then charged down to fight.


	6. Fish City

_One sphere travelled to the city of Atlantis, enveloping and terrifying a small fish. The little fish swam around in the sphere frantically, bumping against it and being repelled, the experience more like hitting a current than a rock. The fish was very glad in its fishy way to eventually be released to go back into the safety of a school, but it never reached one. It wandered for a little before a Singer spotted the lone fish and ate it._

_But the Metasphere did not know this._

Ecco was swimming for the City of Forever in Atlantis' heart. He had to destroy the time machine before anything else could happen. Near the entrance to the City of Forever, he swam into a current going in the direction he wanted to go, and he saw that it was driving him toward a Metasphere. He didn't have much time to wonder what it would change him into before –

– he was very small. There were others around him, others of his kind – but what was his kind? He looked as the group started swimming, and realized he was a small fish, the kind he often fed on. Now, Ecco was afraid; before the transformation, his song had seen a pod of little grey dolphins that had taken up residence in Atlantis, and he could hear that they were hunting. There was nothing to do but swim and find whatever negated this Metasphere as fast as possible, and so Ecco swam.

It was a very long, very frightening swim, even worse than his first entrance into the open ocean. Several times the Singers came near him, almost unknowingly ate their hero. Ecco was as quick as a fish as he had been as a Singer, and the fish had enough of a brain that he could still be cunning, but eventually one of the Singers outmaneuvered him, grabbed him –

– and a confused Singer was holding Ecco's tail in her mouth.

"Let go!" Ecco cried, nodding his head. "I have to get to the Atlantean time machine!"

The Singer obeyed. She was still dumbstruck, but one of her podmates said "How did –"

Ecco cut her off. "I'm sorry, but I have to go. Perhaps I will come back and sing to you what happened later." Ecco started to move off, and a member of the pod called at him.

"Wait! There is a Vortex creature past there!"

Ecco halted and spun around in one motion, very surprised. "_What?_"

"Yes! We saw it go by some time ago!"

"Hey! Hey, the marks on your head... you are Ecco! Did you come to defeat the last of the Vortex?"

"I... um, yes. Yes, now that I know it to be here." _How can there be any more Vortex without their Queen?_

"What do you mean?"

"I have to go. I have no time, much less than I thought I did. Goodbye!" With that, Ecco swam into the heart of Atlantis, leaving the pod confused. After a time, they went back to hunting, deciding that whatever other business Ecco apparently had, he would also be able to take care of the Vortex creature.


End file.
